I Like the Consequences

Porn vs. erotica

I’m quite aggressively at my leisure this Memorial Day, and I hope you are too. Let’s nibble on a little erotica together, shall we? 

This comes from a reader who says her personal challenge for her sex diary is to “write about my real experiences but in the most posh/flowered language possible without sounding too much like men writing women. I’m a woman so it’s usually fine.”

Posh/flowered language welcome, submitter, and speaking for myself here: I respect anyone who poses personal challenges to themselves for their own sex diary. In my eyes, you are already winning.

And so —

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He holds me tight as I do my worst to him. 

I move, enjoying him inside me, and his reaction to every movement. He knows how much I relish this. It makes me feel unlike anything else. He feels so safe. We feel complete. Suddenly, he takes control. He holds me tight. He asks me what I want.

This is new.

Excitement grows in me. I whisper, “I want...”

Him. Specifically, the part of him that is intertwined with me in this moment.

He knows it to be true. Relishes in my admittance of committed desperation. He tells me there will be consequences for enjoying too much. I am told not to move. My unfortunate predicament is, I like the consequences and I like to follow his rules. A little of both ensues. He says the right things. His punishment is swift and controlled. Not too much. Just enough. He guides my hips, allowing me movement when he determines it. I ask longingly. He strictly denies me, creating only more frustration in my body. He touches my most tender place and still upholds the rules.

My body is shaking with need. He finally allows it. The feeling is miraculous and overwhelming.

I’m in awe of him. I tell him so. He smiles, like a shy kid but still with all the soft confidence of a man who is fully aware of what he’s achieved.

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Ooh la la. Thank you for this story, submitter. An excerpt from your diary, no less!

Let’s open with a question. 

When was the very first time you saw or read a sex scene? 

Do you remember what made it sexy? 

Maybe even – fingers curled around bed sheets sexy. Maybe even – the images didn’t immediately vaporize after you moved on to other things sexy, but kept distracting you throughout the day, drawing you back into its world sexy. This line of inquiry has a purpose. 

Next question. Do you recognize this sex scene? 

How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden!

Psych, that’s from the Bible. Did you ever flip to this, bored in church, and go — wait, what? 

You are stately as a palm tree and your breasts are like its clusters.

Gonna be honest, “stately” is not generally a compliment that turns me on…but let’s keep reading Song of Songs, and see where this goes. 

I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches.

Getting better. 

Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.

Old Testament money shot? And I have to say, it’s the going down smoothly for me. The gliding over the lips part.

We’ll circle back to that.

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So, here’s my answer to my own question. The first time I read a memorable sex scene was not, in fact, in church. It was in college, and it was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, because I mean — just look at it:

The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. 

Respect the sexiness in a mere sentence.

There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. 

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? (Trent Reznor.)

Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. 

Can you imagine? Being a British person reading this? A Victorian no less? 

I adored Dracula in college. How disgusting and visceral it was, how the entire physical world is all fog and graveyards, how its moral center is wobbly, because the good guys do a lot of killing and the bad girl is the one you root for. It’s a legit fantastic read. 

I was thinking about all this when our anonymous submitter sent me this story, reflecting on the difference between erotica, and porn. 

A bold claim: 

Dracula is erotica.

Song of Songs is porn. 

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I have sitting on my bookshelf a wonderful little book called The Joy of Writing Sex by Elizabeth Benedict, because I write about sex a lot for my job, and figured I could use some guidance in that department. In it, she makes a convincing argument that allows me to debase the Old Testament in this way: 

Erotica is all about the characters and emotions underlying the sex.

Porn is all about the mechanics of sex. 

And since we all know how the mechanics work, simply describing them usually isn’t sexy. Training the camera’s eye on the body parts – “your breasts are like clusters on a palm tree” or what have you – isn’t super hot. 

What’s more hot is when we know something about the characters, when we know who they are to each other, when the sex is about more than the momentary frisson it brings to these people. But what’s the more? 

Call Me By Your Name.

The peach scene in Call Me By Your Name: hot because Elio’s thinking about Oliver.

All the sexy parts in Judy Blume books: hot because the characters are discovering something brand new about themselves. 

Our submitter’s story: hot because there’s a power differential. Made more hot by the fact that he “feels so safe,” but now he’s denying our narrator, now there are rules, now he’s something else entirely: shy! A whole character arc, tucked inside the folds of a diary.    

So here is my final question for you: 

In your own fantasies, your own self-generated sex scenes. 

What’s the more? 

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I’ve gotten into this lazy habit of dunking on the Bible, probably because I consume too many post-purity culture memes on Instagram. But Elizabeth Benedict says this other helpful thing about porn vs. erotica, in that porn is explicit, while erotica is specific, and it makes me want to back up and defend Song of Songs a little. 

Explicit is: this all happened.

Specific is: I noticed a quirky little thing about this person, I zoomed in and focused on details, I saw the way a strand of hair fell over their eyes, I saw the way their fingers curled around the neck of the guitar, I saw their arm slung over the wheel of a pick-up truck, I saw the flex of their jaw muscles, I saw their shirt unbuttoned, I saw the spot on their legs they missed while shaving, I saw them reach for the bottle of already-opened chardonnay, I saw, I saw, I saw.

Specificity will make you fall in love with a person. 

And I think sometimes this happens in porn too; details that give you a glimpse into what this performer is all about. Porn and erotica don’t have to be mutually exclusive categories.

Which is why, maybe, our Song of Songs Old Testament bro is a little endearing to me, in the end. 

Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.

It’s the way he, he being Solomon, describes it. He’s a man of refined tastes, a king in fact, describing sex in fancy table-spread metaphors.

But, maybe he just wants to be a normal guy.

Maybe, he just wants to push away from the table. Maybe, he doesn’t want to run Israel anymore.

Maybe he just wants to go kiss a little.  

What I’m currently, voraciously, consuming:

• I mean, I have to recommend Dracula to you, if you haven’t read it already. The OG sexy vampire story. 

• If you’re a writer, or simply a nerd like me, The Joy of Writing Sex is funny, insightful, well-written and all-around delightful. I whiled away an afternoon at Zilker Park reading it, almost the whole thing in one go. 

• All the Succession finale recaps known to man, but this one from Vulture is super delicious. 

• I’m about to start watching Somebody Somewhere, because I just watched the trailer and it looks like the kind of show or movie I am generally very affectionate towards: slices of life, served neat, no chaser.

• Speaking of which: High Maintenance. Have you ever watched it? Pick a season, start wherever, they’re all little short stories and they’re all little miracles. 

Coming next week:

A surprise.

Join me next Monday, June 5, for a surprise.